from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals
The Stories Behind the News

An Absent Leader and a World on the Verge of War

Posted: 15 Jul 2009 07:38 PM PDT

The Indian military projects that a Chinese invasion will occur
within the decade. Thousands of Japanese families leave the country every
year out of fear that a nuclear attack from North Korea is now inevitable.
The Russian military squats looking over Georgia and the Ukraine, planning
to retake their former Warsaw Pact territories.

Meanwhile Iran's
own race toward a nuclear bomb, brings it into a collision course not only
with Israel, but with the region's Sunni Arab powers. Saudi Arabia and
Egypt are rapidly pushing their own nuclear projects, and are cooperating
with Israel on a potential raid on Iran's nuclear capabilities.

In
Latin America the tide of Cuban backed leftist dictatorships has hit a
wall in Honduras and Columbia. The choice is now between coups, popular
revolutions or right wing insurgencies on the Contra model, resulting in
large scale bloodshed across Latin America.

The economic crisis has
only accelerated the situation with countries such as Russia and China
which got rich off its exports, suddenly discovering that the good life is
drying up, and oligarchic capitalism no longer looks like such a good
model. North Korea's egocentric madman Kim Jong Il is nearing the end of
his life, and after a lifetime of being worshiped as a god, is likely to
want to go out with a bang. Iran is facing serious domestic instability
and economic problems due to its population boom, generation gap and
control of wealth by a handful of families. The Latin American leftist
dictatorships, from Chavez on down, have seen their "reforms" fail,
leaving them with a great deal of domestic discontent to muzzle. All five
of these represent cases of domestic instability likely to trigger
regional wars.

And so the world now hovers on the verge of war, not
one great sweeping war, but a hundred smaller wars, which when backed with
nuclear weapons might lead to deaths in the millions. And as the world
looks to the White House for leadership, instead of leadership it finds an
empty chair.

Obama's endless world tour, rich in speechmaking and
short on action, has sent the message that the United States is weak and
unable to do anything. When the cat's away, the mice will play. And when
the cat shows every sign of being out of the game, the mice will fight
their own wars among themselves. Obama's absence of international
leadership has created a power vacuum, leaving a handful of European
leaders to argue among themselves, while in the shadows the rats creep
closer and closer inward.

Worse yet the few actions that Obama has
taken, have been to enable the disruptive forces, backing Hamas over
Israel, Zelaya over Honduras and giving Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad yet
another pass. Had Hamas, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Chavez been in
charge of American foreign policy, it is doubtful that they could have
done a better job of helping themselves, than Obama has on their behalf.
By repeatedly demanding surrender from the few sources of regional
stability, including Israel which is increasingly seen even by its Sunni
Arab enemies as a bulwark against Iranian nuclear terror, Obama is not
only selling out America's allies, but paving the way for a far more
devastating set of conflicts to come.

If North Korea's nuclear
program is not aborted, it is likely that Japan will be forced to fully
militarize and take action against Kim Jong Il. What this will do to the
region and the traditional balance of power can only be guessed at. Yet
Obama has chosen to speak loudly and carry a wiffle bat, making occasional
noises while taking no concrete steps to create regional confidence that
American leadership can head off the prospect of North Korean nukes
raining down on the Japanese islands or on Seoul.

If Iran's nuclear development is not aborted, Israel will
have to strike. If Obama manages to tie Israel's hands long enough so that
Iran will be able to deploy nuclear weapons, a nuclear exchange is likely
to follow, with a death in the millions, on either or both sides. Obama
has demonstrated no credible influence over Iran, and shown no results of
any kind to back up his claims that a diplomatic solution will prevent
war. And his fumbling response to the Iranian protests only suggests a
clueless figure out of his depth for whom appeasement is a knee jerk reflex.

China's economic crisis has grown worse, and with rising
domestic instability, both economic and ethnic, war with India may become
a likely distraction. Additionally Pakistan's slide into its own form of
instability, and the possibility that its government will be supplanted by
an Al Queda allied group, at least in part, raises the possibility of yet
another nuclear exchange in the east. Obama's regional policy has been
limited primarily to operations in Afghanistan, which while not
illegitimate in and of itself, remains ridiculously narrow minded in view
of the greater crisis at hand.

The spreading tide of Latin America left wing tyranny has run
smack dab into an economic downturn and the programmed failure of central
planning that sooner or later strikes down all socialist dreams dead.
Rather than standing for democracy and the rule of law, and aiding the
emergence of free market Latin American governments allied to the US,
Obama has instead emboldened Chavez and his mini-me's by kowtowing to the
various Cubas-in-waiting, and backed Zelaya over the Honduran
constitution. This has given the green light to Chavez and every other
Latin American leftist thug in power to use violent means to stay in
power, over and above the rule of law and popular discontent.

And
while this might lead to Obama's socialist fellow travelers in Latin
America getting a temporary life extension, in the longer term it will
lead to civil war and the rise of guerrilla armies and terrorist groups,
many of which are likely to fund their operations through narcotics sale
and trafficking, creating further social and criminal problems for
America.

Russia meanwhile has built an oligarchy of corruption
under Putin and his ex-KGB allies based around selling oil and gas. The
problem is that the oil and gas is running out, and with a worldwide
economic decline, selling what Russia does have left to the West is no
longer as profitable. With Russia having invested big in energy, including
strings of gas stations, equipment and overseas companies, the energy
bubble is bursting. Construction has drastically slowed down and Medvedev
and Putin have had to use legal threats against anyone talking about an
economic crisis in Russia.

Putin had built up a national socialist
movement in Russia, seizing companies and parceling out their
administration to his allies for a system of shakedowns and bribes. He
built all of that on top of a fascist youth movement personally loyal to
him and a police state that controls the media and the political system.
The more unstable things have become, the more rabidly xenophobic the
Russian climate has turned. The increasing threats against the Ukraine and
the invasion of Georgia has been driven by equal parts energy greed and a
KGB man's dream of reclaiming the USSR's old captive states.

Bush and NATO haltingly got Putin to back off his first
invasion of Georgia. However the open contempt with which Obama has been
received in Russia aptly conveys how little Putin worries about America's
new leader. With Obama still trying to bargain over missile defense,
Russia is eying an invasion as a domestic distraction and a way to corner
the remains of its energy market. The only thing it needs is for Obama to
sign an agreement that will serve as the equivalent of the Hitler-Stalin
pact, leaving specified countries outside the umbrella of US protection.
Russia is certain that with America sidelined, its old Western European
enemies, most notably England for whom Putin has a special hatred, will be
helpless to stop the forcible reclamation of the Warsaw Pact at the
expense of NATO.

Finally in Israel, Obama's push for the quickie
creation of a Palestinian state, has made it clear that it's open season
for the terrorists, and that Israel will be held upside down and shaken
down for everything by a newly hostile US administration headed by a man
whose roots are more Muslim than anything else, and devoid of any
affection or sympathy for the State of Israel.

Before the
Insta-Palestinian state can happen, Obama has pushed on with a quickie
Unity government of Hamas and Fatah. The last such unity government ended
with Hamas in control of Gaza. The next one is likely to give Hamas the
whole kit and kaboodle. Domestically Obama has allied himself with the
same left wing Jewish groups who fought against imposing any sanctions for
Hamas. Abroad, Obama has picked a fight over Settlements, while blatantly
ignoring Palestinian Arab terrorism, and the refusal of both Fatah and
Hamas to recognize Israel. In the process he has alienated the vast
majority of Israelis. Furthermore his repudiation of an oral agreement
with Israel on settlements, has seriously discredited US diplomacy, not
only in Israel but far beyond it.

As destructive as Obama's actions
are toward Israel, the track he is on would either sever America's ties to
Israel, or create a Hamas state in Gaza and the West Bank, that will be
innately hostile to the US, as well as serve as a launching pad for the
Islamist takeover of Egypt. This will in turn force an invasion by either
Israel or Egypt, or both. Even if that does not happen, the quantum growth
in regional terrorism from creating a terrorist state will seriously
destabilize the region.

Obama's drive to create a terrorist state can only increase
terrorism, spawn misery, bring chaos and war. At best Obama will have
destroyed relations with the Middle East's only democracy and long term
American ally. At worst, his destructive tampering will lead to a regional
war.

Once again on every front, Obama has proven both hapless and
destructive, enabling the more disruptive forces, sending the signal that
America is out to lunch. With the world on the verge of war, the White
House has become a byword for absent leadership everywhere, but among the
media mouthpieces for the Obama Administration which bask in lavish
displays of administration over his inaction, ineptness and dangerously
wrong policies.

The threats are real. The danger is great. The
worst case scenarios are unthinkable. And America which should be serving
as a point of stability and a beacon of freedom, has instead become a
source of instability and an enabler of tyranny.